Aviation expert
Politicians are calling for the federal government to consider buying Swiss instead of state aid. Andreas Wittmer, aviation expert and head of the Center for Aviation Competence at the University of St. Gallen, thinks nothing of it.
The Swiss planes are largely at a standstill because of the corona crisis, and the employees are on short-time work.
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–The subsidiary of the German Lufthansa group therefore wants Swiss state aid – and will probably get it.
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–The financial administration has prepared a rescue package for Swiss over 1.5 billion.
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–Thanks to federal guarantees, this amount should come from the banks in the form of loans and not directly from the state treasury.
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–Davon holds EPP National Councilor Nik Gugger doesn’t do much. He demands the Federal Council to eBuying Swiss to consider.
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–Gugger: “We sold Swiss 2005 to Lufthansa for only EUR 310 million. Now we should be three times as much in the company. »
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–Aviation expert Andreas Wittmer thinks this is stupid: “If the Swiss were pulled out of the Lufthansa Group, it would hardly be able to survive,” he says.
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Andreas Wittmer, what would it cost to buy Lufthansa’s Swiss?
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Swiss does not have a price. Lufthansa could charge an astronomical amount because it certainly does not want to sell its Cashcow Swiss. Because since the purchase, Lufthansa has earned around five billion Swiss francs in profits. The purchase price would have to be at least several billion.
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Would the federal government’s purchase of Swiss be a good idea?
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No, that would be a great stupidity. If the Swiss were pulled out of the Lufthansa Group, it would hardly be able to survive. The fact that Swiss earns so much money is due to the global network and the synergies it has thanks to its affiliation with the Lufthansa Group and the Star Alliance. This starts with the coordination of flight times, extends to maintenance and to the joint purchase of aircraft. Thanks to the size of the Lufthansa Group, Swiss has immense advantages everywhere. The Swiss market is too small for an independent Swiss to survive on today’s scale. The federal government would create a coarser problem with a purchase, especially in the Corona crisis, which is already causing a market shakeout anyway.
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So is the planned emergency loan the best solution?
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It is certainly the fastest and easiest solution to implement. In addition, the loan is only called up if it becomes necessary. Swiss is only preparing for a bad scenario. But you could also think about participating in Lufthansa in any form. One would have to define that the money would be used for Swiss purposes. Such an approach, however, can hardly be implemented in a short time. For this, the federal government would have to accept a much higher risk than with a loan and above all immediately loosen capital and invest this abroad and agree with Lufthansa. That hardly seems possible.
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